Adventures of an Aviatrix, in which a pilot travels the skies and the treacherous career path of Canadian commercial aviation, gaining knowledge and experience without losing her step, her licence, or her sense of humour.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Brightline on the Flight Line

My first flight bag was actually an
insulated lunch bag that my flight school sold
me with the headset. The insulation served as
padding and there was a pocket on the side into
which I could cram sunglasses or charts. I
later graduated to a laptop bag, which was good
for charts, but didn't hold the headset. I
tried using a document case like the big
airline pilots carry, but my cockpit didn't
accommodate it. I now use a messenger bag
leather messenger bag I bought at a Danier
sale. It has lots of pockets which although not
perfectly suited to the things I carry, I now
am accustomed to navigating to find my stuff
when I need it. It's tough and looks good, and
the leather feels nice. Animals definitely are
made out of excellent stuff.

When I fly single pilot, I put my bag in the
copilot seat and secure it with its own strap,
then open all the pockets that contain things I
need in flight. An additional pocket contains
things that I won't necessarily need in flight
but which I could need if I'm stranded
somewhere I didn't expect to go on this flight:
a change of underwear and socks and my
cellphone charger. One tends to use one's
cellphone a lot during irregular
operations.

You could fly with your stuff in a Spider-
Man backpack from Zellers and you would
probably be able to dig most of it out when you
needed it, but it's nice to have something that
looks professional and that both protects your
gear and makes it more accessible. There do
exist bags designed specifically as flight
bags. A reader sent me a link to a YouTube clip
featuring the Brightline bag. They've clearly
put a lot of thought into it.

The Brightline bag does solve a few common
flight bag problems. My headset is the same
size as the blue one in the demo so it doesn't
fit in the little end pocket on many flight
bags. I do like the water bottle pocket and the
dedicated spare battery pocket, and having it
break in half.

At $US 129.00, it's quite expensive for a
bag, but it's not out of the ball park for
flight bags. I don't know about the material or
how durable it is. Will the pens poke holes in
the little pen pocket? Does it stand up to
catching on the sharp metal bits at the edge of
the fuel selector panel? I like how compact it
is, and they may be right that it does the job
of bigger bags, becaue my bag is not stuffed
full. But an advantage to having a larger bag
is that I can stuff my sweatshirt and a couple
of books in it, whereas if I wanted to add that
much to the Brightline book, it wouldn't fit.
If I felt my current bag were worn out, I'd
definitely consider this bag, but I'm happy
enough with the leather one to keep it until it
gets ratty.

When I searched my inbox to find the name of
the reader who sent me the link, so I could
credit him or her, I found insteada message
from the manufacturer, offering me a commission
if I were to sell any bags. I had archived that
message probably without even reading it,
because I don't advertise on the site. But then
I thought: as I'm going to post about this bag
anyway, if someone was going to buy it
anyway, then what's the harm in having
them buy it from this site and have some of the
money go towards building
houses for Cambodians? So if you like this
bag enough to buy it, do it by clicking the
link below.

I eventually realized that I didn't find the
original message because it came to my personal
mailbox, not my Cockpit Conversation
one, because this reader is also a former
student who figured out long ago who I was, and
thus knows my real e-mail address. He doesn't
have a blog, but I can tell you he once took a
little Cessna out and overflew a prison, inside a
charted restricted area, but didn't get in
trouble, because he asked permission of the
proper authority first. It was a ballsy little demonstration that that's how the
system works.

My new active-noise-canceling headphones came with their own hard-shell case that keeps them from being mangled in a backpack. I use a DC Comics 45 RPM record caddy to protect my other squishables when traveling.

I am a brightline bag fan. I've had mine about 18 months and it shows no real signs of wear. I enjoy knowing where things are (because of all the pockets) but it's beat unintended benefit is the ability if the chart pocket to hold an iPad (even with the iPad in a Contour Design hard-shell protector).

Damn! If only this had come a few month earlier. I was looking at flight bags and settled on a Jeppesen as a good compromise of quality and price, in Australia i was able to find one that from memory is slightly bigger and cheaper. Although it doesn't seem as intuitive (from what I read) it's pretty close and the price difference sold me.

Happy Birthday to me, last July. I bought myself one and relieved my family the challenge of figuring out what to get me.

I love it.

Yes, the pens fit in the pockets, the construction is solid, the dimensions are well thought out, and if you get your jollies from having lots of zippers then this bag will definately satisfy your fetish.

The only shortcoming I have discovered is that my statute/nautical ruler doesn't fit in the flight [planning pocket, even diagonally. I'll probably just chop the end off the ruler.

I didn't really need a new flight bag because my decades old elementary school kid sized backpack (I am not kidding) was doing fine. But I like what you are raising money for and I was impressed as hell with the video demonstration for the bag.

Why thank you Rick, but note that you just made a nice pitch for the elementary school kid-sized backpack, be it Spider-Man or Disney Princess. If anyone buys a flight bag from Zellers, I expect them to make a Cambodia donation of part of the savings over a "real" flight bag. As far as I'm concerned, if you take it flying, it's a real flight bag.